


starts just where the light exists

by polyside



Category: Polygon/McElroy Vlogs & Podcasts RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, Not Beta Read, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:55:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21891745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/polyside/pseuds/polyside
Summary: Brian’s had his stupid soulmark since the morning of his thirteenth birthday and he hates it. Not because it isn’t perfect or romantic or even especially out of the ordinary - handmarks are so common that the word handmark exists to be used, after all - but because it’s large and, well, not dainty.
Relationships: Brian David Gilbert/Patrick Gill
Comments: 7
Kudos: 131





	starts just where the light exists

**Author's Note:**

> This was actually the first thing I wrote in this fandom, but it needed work. I feel slightly less like it needs work now and we’re in a content drought that, I know, will end soon, but I thought I’d at least have something to show for six hours in a train station/on a train. 
> 
> Someday I will write sex and/or dialog in a way that makes me happy. That day is not today.

Brian’s had his stupid soulmark since the morning of his thirteenth birthday and he hates it. Not because it isn’t perfect or romantic or even especially out of the ordinary - handmarks are so common that the word handmark exists to be used, after all - but because it’s large and, well, not dainty, to use Laura’s wording. Brian hates his soulmark because his classmates call him names and won’t spend time alone with him, because kids are mean and he has a heart easily wounded. Boys with handmarks have dainty hands inside their grasp, but Brian has a man’s large hand gripping his wrist and nobody ever lets him forget it. 

The mark haunts him to adulthood, through high school theater and acapella performances, through every single date, every girl and every boy. In college Brian learns how to hide his soulmark with makeup and clothes - the nice senior with the soft eyes gives him an old pair of gloves during Brian’s first rehearsal and points him in the right direction. Brian’s roommate Jonah has it worse, though, the mark covering the right side of his neck in such a way that even a scarf doesn’t hide it completely. The first time they kiss Brian tries to fit his hand perfectly to the mark, gets close, but it stays red when Brian pulls away, not a hint of the gold shimmer that would declare their match in sight. Love doesn’t require goldmarks but, hey, it would have been nice.

——

Pat doesn’t believe in soulmarks. People have birthmarks other than the soulmarks, and some people don’t get them - Pat read in a book, once, that it was a German princess who fell in love with a common boy and used her odd birthmark and the way it changed color to validate their marriage to the world. Pat liked the story, took it to heart, and will happily tell it to anyone who comes remotely close to asking his feelings about his soulmate. Stranger things have happened in human history and hands streaked in red are so common that it might as well just be a normal way human skin works.

If the mark does match a girl, though, she must be a good one, and Pat sometimes wonders in his weaker moments what that touch will feel like. It’ll be firm but gentle, he imagines, we’ll meet in school - in college - at a bar, and her gaze will make me feel special, he thinks, but he also doesn’t believe in soulmarks or soulmates or any part of his soul telling him what to do so Pat dates, falls in love, gets hurt, moves to New York, discovers in himself a desire to date boys too, gets hurt some more, and lives on without his soulmate.

Pat doesn’t believe in soulmarks, and that’s what he tells himself every time he finds himself glancing at a hand before he makes contact, wondering, what if?

——

Jonah isn’t Brian’s soulmate but they move to New York together anyway, with Laura who’s always there for him even after all the years. Brian works dead-end jobs that make him unhappy and then lays in bed some nights holding his own hand and wondering if it’ll turn gold someday, if he is his own only soulmate. Every day is like screaming. The comments on his videos are nice, he has a small group of friends and fans who are great, but occasionally someone mentions his mark in the comments and then. Well. He resolves to stop reading the comments this year. He resolves to get a job that makes him happy this year.

Brian watches a lot of YouTube - you have to watch it to be good at it, is his philosophy - and wonders if he should start concealing his mark on video, like he did in school. Most people do. But Brian doesn’t want to hide it forever (and the makeup’s itchy) so when he stumbles on the weird gaming videos from Polygon dot com with their beautiful cast of characters, gold- and red-marked alike, he falls instantly in love with every single person to cross his screen. Those people look so relaxed, they don’t hide their marks, and they’re happy anyway. Brian wants so badly to be part of that and that’s why, when he makes his application video, he leaves his mark uncovered, damn the consequences.

——

Simone doesn’t have a soulmark. Allegra’s is hidden from daily view. Griffin’s goldmarked and Tara too, so Pat doesn’t really think much about soulmarks at work, barely notices his own. He does his job, he comes home, he streams, anyone who wants to talk about his soulmark or make suggestive comments mysteriously disappears, and that’s just how it is. Outside the group, though, shaking hands becomes anxiety-inducing, the way new people eye his mark and very intentionally take his hand to not match it. Now that he’s older touch seems to have become more sacred, and so Pat withdraws, doesn’t initiate anymore, leans on safe Griffin and comfortable Allegra and kind Thomas for his needs in that regard. It’s not exactly fulfilling, it’s not what Pat wants, but it’s what he has. Dating is awful and the sites that match based on marks are full of fakes, so why not just be happy with this, the best coworkers and friends Pat could ask for, a kind of love all its own.

Coworkers come and coworkers go and then Justin and Griffin go and that’s the hardest of them all, goldmarked Griffin with his easy smiles for Pat, who touches Pat’s hands all the time without a care in the world, who makes him laugh. Griffin is determined to find his own replacements, though, and that’s how Pat ends up on a couch watching a lot of nerds talk about how much they love video games. They’re all professional - some kids, some older - gloved or wearing obvious makeup, too-high collars, too-long sleeves. That’s what you’re supposed to do, for job interviews. Pat did it himself when he came to Polygon for all that he never bothered before or since, it’s just the thing that you do.

Brian David Gilbert is wild, wide-eyed, funny, and his handmark is visible in more than a few shots, bright red against pale skin. The contrast of it shocks Pat out of his stupor. Who is this brazen kid who would dare? But Pat sees his own face, his own hand in a tiny thumbnail in the video and he thinks he understands. Everyone else does, too, and that’s it, this is the one. Pat can’t not watch more of the kid’s content, after that - he desperately wants to know this boy who either doesn’t care about his mark or doesn’t care how it makes people feel to see it. Brian David Gilbert, who calls himself BDG, who sings and dances his heart for the camera, whose very existence seems impossible to Pat’s mind, is going to be perfect for them. Maybe losing Griffin’s smiles won’t be so bad with Brian’s to replace them.

——

Brian’s first day at Polygon is a frantic one. He wears a button-down, nice jeans, no glasses, and shakes hands easily with his new boss Tara. He meets Simone who claps him on the shoulder and Allegra who ruffles his hair; meets quiet Clayton and stressed Patrick who don’t touch him like the girls do but still look at him fondly. They’re all attractive, but Brian already knew that. He’s given a desk next to fellow new girl Jenna, an iMac and a monitor and some swag, and gets right to it in pitch meetings and script editing, helps with a shoot, is rushed around by Simone who has been designated as his mentor and clearly finds him adorable. One day follows the next and soon he feels at home with these men and women whose energy matches, amplifies, accepts his own. 

His coworkers are all easy to love, he knew that would be the case, but it’s Patrick who ends up stealing Brian’s attention most. Patrick with his long hair and dimples, bright but rare smile, laugh like sunshine. Patrick and his sass, sarcasm, strange humor that Brian plays off of so easily. Patrick with a handmark of his own in brilliant red, who sometimes looks at Brian with a hand clenched at his side like he wants to touch him (or maybe Brian’s making that up out of his own desire, who knows really). He doesn’t see Pat touching many people, really, not even to shake hands with coworkers or visitors. It’s like there’s a bubble around him (he’s only ever seen Griffin break it, in the office at least) and Brian respects that, tries to be a good friend while slowly building up this fantasy of what it would be like to touch Pat, his hands, his face, to explore the broad line of his shoulders or wrap his fingers in his hair. 

——

Brian wants to touch him. Pat isn’t blind, he can see the way Brian bites his lip and balls his fists when they slide past each other in the kitchen. Pat…isn’t sure he’d mind, really. He’d been right about the way Brian’s smiles soothe his heart like Griffin; maybe he could stand to open up and let Brian touch him. Brian’s a toucher in general, though - he holds himself loosely and seems comfortable in his body, shoulder-checking Jenna with a sly smile, poking Clayton in the side for making him look silly on camera - and Pat isn’t, hasn’t been in years and years. Pat meets sister Laura and roommate Jonah at the bar one night and they’re touchy, too, Laura draping her arm around Pat’s shoulders before he can shrink away, not knowing any better. It is nice, though, and nicer still is Brian’s look of horror, telling her off, protecting him. Brian’s never felt uncomfortable with touch a day in his life and yet he knows Pat is, wants to make Pat comfortable. Maybe it really wouldn’t be so bad to let Brian touch him. 

It happens totally by accident, in the end. They’re all goofing off after filming and Pat’s relaxed, he’s comfortable with his friends all laughing around him. They’re all jumping around and touching each other, Pat even gets into it a little with Allegra and Simone, when Brian falls. The sound of a body hitting the ground, the thump of his head followed by Brian’s watch smashing to pieces on the floor, startles Pat out of his ease and he runs over without thinking as Brian rolls around, tries to push himself up on his hands, falls back down with a huff. Pat’s taken his fair share of spills and plenty of them were in front of friends and coworkers, and not being able to get up is embarrassing. He doesn’t realize that his hand is outstretched to help Brian up until his fingers are closing around Brian’s arm and he pulls.

It’s only once Brian is fully upright and their hands are still locked together that anyone notices the distinct lack of visible red, that Pat’s heart starts to beat faster and a hush falls over the room. His eyes lock on Brian’s, not daring to move or talk or even think, and then Brian smiles gently before lifting just one finger off Pat’s hand to reveal gold underneath.

Simone starts to cry. Of course she does.

**Author's Note:**

> I am @polyside on tumblr and @polysides on Twitter. Come talk to me! I want to make friends!
> 
> If you add me on Twitter and I don’t accept it’s probably because I couldn’t figure out who you are, just DM me, it’s open.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [the way your hands were shaking](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23839312) by [Trigonometrical](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trigonometrical/pseuds/Trigonometrical)


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